


Dream Guy

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: Ironstrange Bingo [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comedy, M/M, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: At a party, 29-year-old Tony Stark named his dream guy. Other people at the party did, too. Then a bet was made: whoever provided photo evidence of having slept with their dream person first would win 10 million dollars.Two decades later, Tony Stark would win that bet.





	Dream Guy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceiolnunicornimagines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceiolnunicornimagines/gifts).



> For cumberunicorn-ceioln on tumblr, based on [artwork by the very talented laisocasblog](https://laisocasblog.tumblr.com/post/183106172472/when-your-dream-comes-true-and-you-want-to-share).
> 
> Also for the Ironstrange Bingo square “Fantasy.”
> 
> The last part of this fic takes place in 2019, but the first part takes place in 1999.
> 
> I wasn’t expecting the first part to sound a bit...sad?? Not pathetic sad, but lonely. In my mind, 20-something Tony partied a lot, always had a date and was always surrounded by people, but still felt alone. /cuddles the poor bby
> 
> EDIT: [THERE'S A FINISHED, COLORED VERSION AND IT IS GORGEOUS AND MUST NOT BE MISSED.](https://laisocasblog.tumblr.com/post/183363179592/yesterday-and-today-have-been-very-hard-days-for)

"So if you could do it with a guy," Ellis Smith asked, "who'd you pick?"

He was talking to the other mostly-naked twenty-something boys in the hot tub, of course. The girls in bikinis didn't count. They never counted. Not in parties like these.

29-year-old Tony Stark started off mildly uncomfortable, as he always did when attending other people's parties - but luckily, Ellis' father had a healthy stock of top-shelf whiskeys. A few shots of 18-year-old Yamazaki shook his inhibitions loose and threw them out into orbit.

Ellis could say as many offensive things as he liked, and Tony, luxuriating in extravagant whiskey and a hot whirlpool tub, wouldn't raise a hand in protest.

"I mean, let's be honest, we can have sex with just about anyone we want," the ever-obnoxious, but ever-generous and ever-"one of the boys" host Ellis Smith continued. "And I'm pretty sure every one of us here is straight, because look around. But if you had to pick one," a mischievous glint appeared in his eye, and Tony idly wondered if there were hidden cameras in the vicinity (there weren't, surely - otherwise, Ellis himself would be the first casualty), "if you had to pick one guy, in all the world, who would it be?"

"Kevin Costner," someone answered quickly. The other partygoers laughed.

"Are you kidding?" someone else said. Tony seriously didn't remember his name. Bill? Jeff? Mark? "I'd go for Robert Downey, Jr."

"Why, because he's a better actor?" the first asshole asked.

"No, because have you _seen_ the ass on that guy?"

Laughter again. Tony covered his face with his hand and shook his head, feigning a smile.

Children, the lot of them.

"What about you, Tones? Who's your dream guy?"

Tony could have easily brushed it off. It wasn't like he often thought about getting it on with other men.

But a name came to his unfettered lips, and he was in no shape to keep it in:

"Stephen Strange."

There was some tittering around the hot tub - presumably because it was an unusual name, deserving of the occasional asshole titter.

"Who the fuck is that?" someone said. It might have been Bill/Mark/Jeff.

"Who the fuck - " Tony knew at the back of his head that these ignorant rich boys wouldn't know who he was talking about, but he knew it would amuse the room if he feigned indignance, and the side of him that loved to perform couldn’t be held back.

He sat up in the tub, raised his voice "- okay, obviously you guys don't read the glossies your dads regularly throw away money on. He's medicine's golden boy. Was featured in Newsweek two months ago. Got his MD and PhD at the same time, performed this high-profile brain surgery as an intern, bought himself a nice apartment in Midtown with the prize money he got from a recent Outstanding Young Men award."

He might not have been aware of how animated his hands were being. Or how excited his voice sounded. He felt like everyone was staring.

He didn't care.

"Remembers everything. _Everything._ Mind like the edge of the sharpest scalpel."

"Mind? Really?" Ellis Smith again, at his most sarcastic while in swim trunks. "I asked who you wanted to _bone_ , Stark, not who you wanted to meet your parents. Or bring to trivia night."

Some laughter from the crowd. Tony looked around. He didn't like where he was. Didn't like who he was with.

But the thought of Stephen Strange...actually made everything better. Actually made him feel _okay_ with sitting in a hot tub in the company of these over-groomed, over-moneyed young idiots.

Strange wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be caught _dead_ in this situation. It gave him some comfort, imagining himself in a situation far away from this, with Strange.

Strange with the stern face, the serenely logical mind, the absorbing eyes.

"I saw him once, at a fundraiser," Tony casually elaborated, sitting back in the water and forcing himself to calm down. "Those eyes. My God. Feel like I could come just staring into them for a full minute."

There was a loud whoop around the hot tub. Even the girls chimed in...though some of them looked at him weirdly, like they weren't sure if they were supposed to approach him for the rest of the night (they would, and it would be fun for everyone involved).

"That's more like it," Ellis Smith cried triumphantly. "Eyes, I'll take it!" He spread his arms wide and addressed the others. "Who else?"

Tony was grateful for the attention shifting away from him at that time. A number of other names came up - Denzel Washington. David Bowie. Tom Cruise. He felt it was safe to zone out. He drifted off, and wasn't fully aware how the conversation moved on to celebrity women with whom everyone else would have sex, if they had the chance.

Names that he recognized came up - Cindy Crawford. Sharon Stone. Margaret Thatcher - but he didn't take any of them seriously. He laughed when it was time to laugh. He showed off disgust when everyone else did.

When Ellis called on him, Tony said that he'd already slept with all the celebrity women he wanted to (not true, but he was, by that time, too drunk to put too much thought into it). And, oddly, everyone else let him get away with saying it. His reputation must have been well-cultivated by that time.

"Hey," Ellis Smith announced, "let's make a bet, shall we? Whoever comes up first with a picture of them  naked with their dream girl - or guy -" he said with a derisive glance at Tony "- wins 10 million US dollars." He gestured to a man in a tuxedo standing in the shadows. "Jeeves there has been taking notes. So, you see, gentlemen, this wasn't just tongue-wagging. If you're in, Jeeves will take your formal pledges tomorrow, before you head for home."

Tony knew for a fact that the butler's name wasn't Jeeves, but he let Ellis get away with that jerkitude in his own house.

He spent the night, and in the morning, just to be polite, deposited his pledge with the butler who was not Jeeves.

 

***

 

Two decades later, everyone should have forgotten about that bet.

As a matter of fact, Tony had forgotten all about it, himself.

It just came back to him after he and Stephen had already been regularly sleeping together for three months.

 

***

 

"So you've been fantasizing about me since we were in our twenties," Stephen said with a smirk, after having heard that story. "I'm flattered."

Tony joked, “Will you still be flattered if I tell you how many times I jerked off to that Newsweek cover?”

“Always so crass,” Stephen said affectionately, looking into Tony’s eyes.

Tony felt himself melting. _Those eyes. My God._

“You ain’t seen crass yet,” he remembered to say, turning around and reaching for his phone. "I'm about to take a photo of you half-naked to win that bet."

  
Art by [laisocasblog on Tumblr.](https://laisocasblog.tumblr.com/post/183106172472/when-your-dream-comes-true-and-you-want-to-share) [SEE THE FINISHED, COLORED VERSION HERE.](https://laisocasblog.tumblr.com/post/183363179592/yesterday-and-today-have-been-very-hard-days-for)  


Stephen stopped short of planting a kiss on Tony's shoulder from behind. His hold on Tony's waist loosened, and he stepped away.

"Oh now, wait a minute..."

Tony looked back at Stephen, blinked. "What?"

“You’re telling me no one's won that bet? Ever? In twenty years?”

“Nope,” Tony said brightly. “I hear Coltrane Dubois once made a pass at Margaret Thatcher in the early 2000’s and almost landed himself in jail...”

Stephen snorted at the mental image.

“...but apart from that, I think everyone just forgot they pledged to sink 10 million into a stupid bet. ’Cause it was pocket change to them, and a really stupid bet.”

"Are you posting this anywhere public?"

Tony held up the phone in his hand. "Instagram," he answered nonchalantly. "Everybody's on it now. Even Ellis Smith, that douche."

He wasn’t really intending to post it anywhere. He just wanted to see how Stephen would react. It might be amusing to see him panic.

But Stephen didn’t lose his cool at all. Which was also amusing.

"Instagram, huh? Why didn't you say?"

He grabbed Tony by the shoulders, turned him around. Gently pushed him back so he would stand against the penthouse’s large floor-to-ceiling window, ass and shoulder blades firm against the glass.

“The cityscape makes for a better backdrop, doesn’t it?” Stephen asked in a playful whisper.

“Why, Dr. Strange.” Tony ran his fingers through the taller man’s hair. “I was not aware that you were familiar with the ins and outs of the ‘gram.”

Stephen shrugged. “Wong’s on social media a lot. He tries to teach me things. Sometimes I listen.”

“Okay, but see, _you_ have to be in the photo, so I think it’s best if we changed places...”

He tried to shift position, but Stephen’s hands bore down on his shoulders, keeping him in place.

“Oh no,” Stephen purred, in a low, predatory voice. “I have a better idea.”

It was a pretty good idea, Tony had to admit. He was completely on board with it. The Instagram photo would be expertly angled to catch his dream guy running his tongue up Tony’s bare neck, with the New York skyline as a background.

Stephen made sure to trace his path up Tony’s neck slowly, so Tony could get a lot of shots to choose from. And if no good shots were taken, Stephen made it clear he didn’t mind going again.

But Tony got the perfect shot on the first try. He uploaded it to Instagram, to the watchful eyes of his over 8 million followers, with this caption:

_Hey @ellissmithisnumber1_

_Pay up._


End file.
